NCCN Publishes New Guidelines for Cancer Patients

Friday, September 24, 2010

Three Roswell Park Physicians Served on Panels that Drafted Inaugural Documents in Series

BUFFALO, NY — The National Comprehensive Cancer Network (NCCN) has debuted a resource that puts high-quality, up-to-date information about cancer diagnosis and treatment in the hands of patients and their loved ones. The new NCCN Guidelines for PatientsTM series, launched yesterday at the NCCN Patient Advocacy Summit in Washington D.C., is a consumer-friendly adaptation of the NCCN Clinical Practice Guidelines in Oncology — a resource that clinicians around the world consult in selecting the most appropriate cancer treatment for their patients.

Three physicians from Roswell Park Comprehensive Cancer Center served on the panels that created the first two documents in the Guidelines for Patients series. Stephen Edge, MD, FACS, Alfiero Foundation Endowed Chair in Breast Oncology and Medical Director of the Breast Center at Roswell Park, served on the panel that drafted the new patient guidelines on breast cancer. Richard T. Cheney, MD, Professor and Chair of the Department of Pathology & Laboratory Medicine at Roswell Park, and Todd L. Demmy, MD, Clinical Chair and Associate Professor in the Department of Thoracic Surgery, helped to craft the non-small-cell lung cancer guidelines. Both documents are available for download at http://nccn.com/patient-guidelines.html.

“Just as the NCCN Clinical Practice Guidelines have been a much-relied-on, trusted resource for physicians, these new publications are sure to be go-to guidance for patients, caregivers, and concerned family members,” said Dr. Edge. “People today are eager not just to find information that can help them to understand the medical care they’re getting, but to be fully informed at every stage and to be included in the decision-making process. In that way, the new Guidelines documents are going to be invaluable for patients as well as their care teams, because they’re going to inform and facilitate those conversations.”

Susan G. Komen for the Cure® provided $160,000 in grant support to the NCCN Foundation to develop and distribute the NCCN Guidelines for PatientsTM: Breast Cancer. The NCCN Guidelines for PatientsTM: Lung Cancer is named in honor and memory of Dana Reeve, the wife of the late actor Christopher Reeve. Dana died of lung cancer in 2006, seven months after her diagnosis. Her sister, Deborah Morosini, MD, a member of the NCCN Foundation Board, has become an active spokesperson for increased awareness of lung cancer.

“These guidelines will fill a huge gap for patients and the people who are supporting them,” says Dr. Morosini, “and will be an incredibly valuable tool in making them more knowledgeable partners in their own treatment.”

The mission of Roswell Park Comprehensive Cancer Center is to understand, prevent and cure cancer. Roswell Park, founded in 1898, was one of the first cancer centers in the country to be named a National Cancer Institute- designated comprehensive cancer center and remains the only facility with this designation in Upstate New York. The Institute is a member of the prestigious National Comprehensive Cancer Network, an alliance of the nation’s leading cancer centers; maintains affiliate sites; and is a partner in national and international collaborative programs. For more information, visit Roswell Park’s website at http://www.roswellpark.org, call 1- 877-ASK-Roswell Park (1-877-275-7724) or email AskRoswell@Roswellpark.org.